Sacrifice
by Swirly Head
Summary: love is all about sacrifice - will Spike make the greatest sacrifice of all?


He sat alone in the hallway. The flicker of the single neon light made the shadows darker,   
accentuating the sharp lines of his face. Usually he would have jumped from the chair and   
smashed the light. Its constant flashing annoyed him, set his teeth on edge. But then, these   
were unusual circumstances.   
  
If you stared at something for long enough, you began to see it for the first time. What he'd at   
first perceived as cheap and peeling linoleum was transformed. His mind traced every crack,   
became intimately aquatinted with the monotonous yellowing pattern, fixed on the insanely   
ordered lives of the cockroaches.  
  
None of this helped him to forget.  
  
If anything, it served as a constant reminder. For what other reason would he be sitting in this   
place, staring at this floor, pushing all thought away?   
  
And love was a curse. They wrote of heroic deaths and romantic dinners, and everyone knew   
life wasn't like that. Some died heroes. Some ate by candlelight. Most clung to an attraction or   
a friendship with the extra benefit of occasional sex. Few knew real love.  
  
Real love was sacrifice. Real love was frantic and needing. Real love was when every   
moment became the last moment, when every kiss was tainted with the fear that tomorrow   
this may all end. With fear came the certainty that if this was the last kiss, if love had been felt   
only for a fleeting few days, it was forever worth the world of pain that followed.   
  
Those who felt real love felt real pain.  
  
At the end of the hallway stood a figure. He had not noticed her arrival, and that was the way   
it should be, and always would be. The chair was pushed to one side as he rose, and turned   
to face her. Moving protectively to stand by the door on his left, he spoke.  
  
"You came."   
  
She spoke without sound. Her voice was intertwined with the fibre of all beings on this earth,   
for she came to visit them all one day.  
  
"Of course."   
  
It was strange to feel the words inside, strange to think that she was really there at all.   
Dressed appropriately in black, her raven hair was straight and long. She had a thin face, a   
lean body. It was as though someone had created an angel then stripped it of life and light.   
Beautiful yet repulsive. It burnt his eyes to look at her.  
  
"Who did you come for?"   
  
She regarded him with white eyes. They had no pupil or iris, no colour. Some said the eyes   
were the window to the soul, and he believed them.  
  
"You know who I have come for."   
  
"Take me."  
  
The black dress rustled as she stepped closer to him.  
  
"Why make this so hard? It is the way the world works. Why trade yourself for her? She will   
still die."   
  
"No! It doesn't work like that...I give you myself in exchange for her life...she won't die."   
  
"Everyone must die. No-one lives forever. Whatever may be granted to her would only be an   
extension."   
  
"I don't care. Anything. She doesn't deserve to die now...not like this."   
  
She arched one elegant eyebrow, and he thought for a moment that a thin smile crossed her   
thin lips.  
  
"True love...it blinds the vision more than anything else. Yet my vision remains clear as death.   
She must die. It is her time."   
  
He felt like crying, but stood his ground.  
  
"If you want to take her, you'll have to come through me first."   
  
"That condition is acceptable."   
  
She walked through his body, through the door, and into the room beyond.  
  
He flung open the door and ran to the bed. She walked slowly across the floor, and stopped   
behind him. The young man grabbed the hand of the still form on the bed and kissed it   
reverently, as one may kiss the hand of a god.  
  
Death stood behind him, and she sighed.  
  
"So be it. I take you in exchange for her. But it is only an extension. She is a mortal being."  
  
Real love is sacrifice, and he felt Death's cool fingers lightly brush his forehead. Then his   
body crumbled to dust, as the bodies of his kind often do in death. He found that he could not   
speak, only watch. Anchored by Death's side, he stared at the small broken body on the bed,   
and waited.  
  
The girl's eyelids fluttered open. If he had tear ducts, he would have cried. As it was he   
looked on, intent on following her until she reached safety. The demon that had mauled her   
body was dead now, but they had been far away from the others, and there may still be   
dangers lurking. There had been two demons.   
  
He saw her eyes look at the pile of dust on the floor. She didn't cry. Just stared silently. Then   
she curled into a small ball of pain, hiding her face from his view. Her shoulders began to   
shake, and the room filled with loud sobs.   
  
The lady in black took him by the hand.   
  
"It is time to go."   
  
"I want to watch."   
  
"Perhaps it would be better if you didn't."  
  
"Why?"   
  
Death silently led him away from the bed. He struggled.  
  
"Why? Why can't I watch her...I want to make sure she's safe!"   
  
Her grip was like an iron vice, and he looked back again.  
  
"It was a fair deal...my life.."   
  
"You were already dead.."   
  
"Alright then, my demonic life for hers!"  
  
"You are correct. It was a fair deal. Your demonic life for an extension of hers."   
  
He turned again. Looked through the door. She was still curled on the bed. Always petite, but   
now looked smaller still. And behind her the floorboards creaked. And she stopped crying.   
And a feral growl filled the room.  
  
Death let go of his hand. He felt himself being sucked away, to where, he didn't know or care.   
The last thing he saw was Death walking once more into the room in the cheap motel. The   
last thing he heard was the sobs and screams of his lover.  
  
The last thing he thought was that he had forgotten to ask Death just how long an extension   
the bitch had granted.   
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
